Life's ebb and flow last spoken of a few days ago is well attested in the picture here posted of Alyce's brother, Warren Leroy Larson. It is really not a picture at all but a portrait painted by his daughter Karen, now become a master artist working out of Charleston, South Carolina.It almost took my breath away when I saw it this evening, thanks to a photo sent by Warren's brother Eugene, the last of four brothers there were originally in the Larson clan. It just couln't be more realistic.
Artists know how to catch the essence of a person, and a child of the person being painted has a head start given a life-long acquaintance with the manerisms that have marked their loved one's personality over time. What I see in this portrait is more than a representation of Warren. I see Warren himself, not only physically but spiritually, oblivious to lesser things surrounding, keenly focused on a piece of music before him, soon to become--given his love affair with such--the music within him.
Warren was a scientist of some repute--a PhD from MIT, one of two metallurgists who received the patents on the superconducting wire used in MRI technology. Born in China of missionary parents, he like his father and mother never paraded his gifts. He used them rather, in science as in music and life, in service to others--often at cost to himself. A gentle man and mild mannered, even somewhat shy and self-effacing, he gave glory where glory is due, to family and music and God.
He and his deceased brothers Quentin ("Dusty") and Nathaniel, each in their own way with their own gifts, have left us a legacy true to the faith and spirit of their wonderful parents and the immigrant forebears who first bore and nurtured them over a century ago. And his brother Eugene, as his sisters Muriel, Phyllis, and Alyce, are living reminders of the same Larson legacy.
Now his daughter Karen has captured at the ebbing of Warren's earthly life the essence of who he was in all that, which will flow forward for years to come and bless generations yet unborn. One can only be reminded of the choric psalm (150) that concludes that holiest of books: Praise the Lord ... with trumpet sound, with lute and harp! Praise him with tambouine and dance ... with strings and pipe! Praise him with clangimg cymbals ... with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Rest well, brother Warren. You have won our love and earned our respect. And you have left life the richer with a remarkable legacy of your own.
.JPG)